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Butch Walsh

There is one word that is defined by Butch Walsh… and that word is “racer”.  Born Fredrick T. Walsh, he was a Dover, Mass native who was known throughout New England for racing all types of cars, but we know his heart was with the midgets, specifically with NEMA for the time he spent racing, and leading this club as president for three terms from 1981 to 1984, in addition to winning 16 feature events and a driver’s championship in 1973. Read his story below....

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Biography
On any given night in the span of over three decades, you could find Butch either driving or wrenching on a race car, whether it was a NEMA or ARDC midget, a super modified, a stock car, a sprint car, a modified, or even a motorcycle​. He lived and breathed racing for most of his life. He was a skilled automotive technician who at a very young age began racing stock cars at the famed Norwood Arena.  Long-time racing observer Bruce Cohen remembers his first effort - "a white car that had 'Mom's Worry' written on it."  But his affair with the NEMA midgets is of most interest.  According to Butch’s own story, his midget racing career all started in an old barn full of junk. He was hired to clean it out and that’s where he found an old abandoned midget with a dust-covered Ford V8-60.  
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As he was trucking the old midget and the rest of the junk down the road, a local stopped him and told him about the NEMA midget’s coming to Westboro Speedway later on that month. Butch spent the next two weeks getting the old barn find running and on May 21st, 1966 at Westboro Speedway, Butch drove in the very first midget racing event he had ever seen. Unfortunately, he did not qualify for that feature, but he made all the others that season and was named the 1966 NEMA Rookie of the year.
After catching the midget bug, Butch would grab a ride anytime he could, or drive his own Offy powered midget at times.  During the late sixties and early seventies, Butch towed for thousands of miles and spent thousands of hours repairing his and other cars.  In 1971, he became totally dedicated to racing, running the full NEMA schedule and spending his days off dirt racing with ARDC, an agenda he would continue for years to come.  In addition to that, he raced modifieds and super modifieds up until the late-seventies in his spare time.  Among the cars Walsh worked on were the ARDC championship machines of Mike Sheehan. It was during that time that Walsh pulled off one of his most astonishing accomplishments - running one Friday night on the dirt at Grandview, PA and the next night on the pavement at Caribou Maine’s Spud Speedway – a twelve-hour trek without traffic. He then topped off the weekend by making the NEMA show at Unity Raceway that Sunday afternoon. It involved a trip of several hundred miles in one night. "Butch just did things like that," said Cohen, a friend since the early 1970s. "There are lots of Butch Walsh stories. He was smart and creative but effective as well."
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​Butch’s first midget victory came at Maine's Wiscasset Speedway driving for Jerry Connors in 1972.  The following season he wound-up in the famous Scrivani family machine in 1973. He won the championship that year with fourteen top-four finishes highlighted by a victory at Westboro, a significant accomplishment at the time considering he did it in a traditional upright during the surge of the Badger revolution. "My father, of course, had known Butchie for some time and figured he was going pretty good in less-then top of the line cars," Mike Scrivani Jr recalled.  Butch Walsh would become the first race car driver to have his name inscribed on a Scrivani owned midget. 
"That was very significant", says Mike Scrivani Jr recalling a number of stories about Butch. "The old man had a lot of great drivers, but Butchie was the first one he considered a ‘steady’ driver."  Over the next twelve years, Butch continued his success winning in Dick Bien's badgers, a combination that would earn this fantastic duo eight feature wins in just three seasons. He then scored two more feature victories in the Dunn #T5 Badgers over the next couple years, which was in between wrenching and driving his own rear engine machine he affectionately referred to as "the Pancake". Time and time again he proved to not only be great with a wheel in his hand, but also a wrench.  Every car he drove, including the Connors, Scrivani, Bien and Dunn machines, he helped work on and prepare for each race. Mike Scrivani Jr credits Butch with teaching him about the importance and dedication to having the car ready for each race.​
People say you have to be fearless to drive a race car, and Butch was certainly that, but the quality extended well beyond the cockpit. He was unafraid to try new things, unafraid to learn. At the end of 1981, he was elected to NEMA president. During his tenure, he convinced the United States Auto Club to come out east to sanction events with NEMA and ARDC, giving local midget racers the opportunity to put their names in national record books. Big names like Rich Vogler, John Andretti, Mel Kenyon, among others made the trek from the Midwest to compete on NEMA and ARDC soil. Even without their wings, the NEMA stars shined and proved this club could run with the best in the country.  He was also instrumental in NEMA’s moment on the big screen, when in 1983 footage from a Montreal race was featured in a French movie called “Le Ruffian”. 
Butch’s very last ride in a NEMA midget came at the end of the 1986 season at Thompson’s World Series of Auto Racing. He hopped into the Nogueira Sesco Badger #98 and won the feature in demanding fashion in one of the toughest field of cars the club hadn’t seen in years.  For the 1987 season, he was hired as the promoter for Riverside Speedway in Groveton, NH, providing NEMA with race dates that following year.  He would continue racing into the late eighties and nineties but on two wheels, racing flat track motorcycles on dirt and ice, in addition to vintage road racing for which he was crowned champion one year in the mid nineties.    
Throughout all his racing exploits, Butch remained a humble, unassuming man, grateful for the opportunity just to be able to get behind the wheel of a race car, never grabbing the spotlight, preferring it to shine on those around him.  He was active to the end of his life, keeping in touch with his NEMA family members, attending NEMA races when his health allowed, and passionately lobbying for his friend and fellow Hall of Famer Wen Kelley to be inducted into the National Midget Hall of Fame.  A few weeks before Butch passed away in 2015, it was announced that Wen would be inducted into the National Hall of Fame at The Chile Bowl in Oklahoma that January - as always his hard work had paid off.
Following Butch’s passing in the Fall of 2016, Chris Romano, a longtime NEMA member and journalist, described Butch perfectly: “...As the British would say, he was a proper bloke. A stand-up guy who left this joint better than he found it, and had a lot of fun along the way. We should all be so lucky!” 
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NEMA Win List
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Butch's very first victory in 1972 at Wiscasset Speedway ...you can see the emotion in his eyes!
Year.....Date - Track - Car
1972........6/24 - Wiscasset Speedway - Connors #58
1973........9/15 - Westboro Speedway - Scrivani #22
1975........5/25 - Star Speedway - Scrivani #22
1975.........6/22 - Star Speedway - Scrivani #22
1975.........8/31 - Devils Bowl Speedway - Scrivani #22
1980.........5/03 - Waterford Speedbowl - Bien #35
1980.........7/13 - Westboro Speedway - Bien #35
1981.........5/23 - Westboro Speedway - Bien #35
1981.........5/30 - Waterford Speedbowl - Bien #35
1981..........6/13 - Westboro Speedway - Bien #35
1982..........7/17 - Westboro Speedway - Bien #35
1982..........8/01 - Hudson International Speedway - Bien #35
1982..........8/07 - Westboro Speedway - Bien #35
1984..........9/01 - Star Speedway - Dunn #T5
1984..........9/02 - Hudson International Speedway - Dunn #T5
1986.........10/19 - Thompson International Speedway - Nogueira #98

NEMA Timeline
  • 1966 NEMA Rookie of the Year
  • 1967 Competed with NEMA driving his and other's cars.
  • 1968 Competed with NEMA driving his and other's cars.
  • 1969 Finished 16th in the NEMA standings.
  • 1970 Finished 8th in the NEMA standings.
  • 1971 Raced both ARDC and NEMA, finishing 21st and 10th respectively in the point standings.
  • 1972 Raced both ARDC and NEMA, finishing 19th and 5th respectively in the point standings. 1 feature win in the Connors Sesco.
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  • 1973 Won the NEMA Driver's Championship in the Scrivani Sesco. 1 feature win, 15 top five finishes. NEMA Contest Board member.
  • 1974 Finished 15th in the NEMA standings in the Scrivani Edmunds Sesco, and was crowned Rookie of the year in a NESMRA super. NEMA Contest Board member.
  • 1975 Finished 7th in the NEMA standings in the Scrivani Edmunds Sesco with 3 Feature wins, 2 state championships, and competed with NESMRA and stock cars.
  • 1976 Finished 11th in the NEMA standings in only half the shows in the Scrivani Edmunds Sesco. Raced his own modified 2nd half of season.
  • 1977 Raced modifieds and ARDC midgets. Did not compete with NEMA.
  • 1978 Finished 5th in the NEMA standings in the Bien Badger Pinto #35 with 6 top ten finishes.
  • 1979 Finished 12th in the NEMA standings in the Bien Badger Pinto #35 with 6 top ten finishes.
  • 1980 Finished 6th in the NEMA standings in the Bien Badger Pinto #35 with 2 Feature wins and 9 top ten finishes. Also raced modifieds and supermodifieds.
  • 1981 Finished ?th in the NEMA standings in the Bien Badger Pinto #35 with 3 Feature wins.  Johnny Thomson Memorial Award winner.
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  • 1982 NEMA president. Finished 3rd in the NEMA standings in the Bien Badger Pinto #35 with 3 Feature wins and 14 top five finishes.
  • 1983 NEMA president. Finished 9th in the NEMA standings driving 4 different cars, including the Nagy Edmunds VW #36 and his own.
  • 1984 NEMA president. Won the Chuck Daniel Award. Finished 11th in the NEMA standings with 2 feature wins in the Lorusso T-5 Badger. Also drove the Nagy #36.
  • 1985 Finished 20th in the NEMA standings in the Dunn T-5 Badger with 4 top ten finishes. USAC series.
  • 1986 Finished 20th in the NEMA standings in the Nogueira Sesco Badger #98 with 2 top ten finishes. USAC series. Won his last NEMA feature at Thompson aboard the Nogueira Sesco Badger #98.
  • 1996 Inducted into the Dick Gallagher Memorial Hall of Fame

Photo Gallery

Classic NEMA Video
1986 Thompson World Series of Auto Racing NEMA Feature. Butch's very last NEMA race...
Courtesy of The MoonRacer1 Network
Click Here

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1973 NEMA Yearbook
Illustrating Butch Walsh's Driver Championship
1973 Yearbook
Other Yearbook

 Inaugural Butch Walsh Memorial Race
May 21, 2016 at Star Speedway in Epping, NH
For more info please check the NEMA  or Star Speedway websites
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